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JUDIT ÁGNES KÁDÁR
“added value” increases during wartime. These considerations indicate that
the re-evaluation of a person based on merits attributed to ethnic affiliation
and race shows the confusion of values in the two worlds colliding.
As for ethnic change, another interesting approach is that of assimilation
versus integration. Elijah seems to adapt way more easily in his adolescence
to white culture, while Xavier is more careful and critical: “I rely on Elijah
to help me in their world”, but “their” signifies the distance that separates
Xavier from the alien environment. “He teaches us the importance of blending
into our surroundings”,“* meaning symbolic and pragmatic assimilation,
which is not necessarily internalized. In addition, the suspended steps of
their identification are fostered by the fact that they are initially invisible
to officers. Besides, the cultural differences do not really disappear with
partial acculturation, for instance, they interpret Christmas as the feast of
sadness and the fundamental paradox of the celebration on the frontline and
the religious ideology while killing continues remains. The two pals diverge
in their attitude to non-Native culture. While Elijah hopes that they can
return to the bush and to Niska, Xavier knows that Elijah has gone too far,
that the inhumanity in his deeds essentially cuts him from his core ethnic
culture and one can see him less and less as a representative of First Nations
and increasingly as a fallen villain, a human being who has lost everything.
He adapts to cruelty, becomes a borderline personality in the psychological
sense, like Frenchman, and his act of killing and blasphemy at the sculpture
of the Virgin Mary" has nothing to do any more with any kind of morality
but ultimately pushes him into a vacuum, both cultural and psychological,
from which he cannot ever escape.
Another relevant aspect of ethnic change in Three Day Road is the identity
game and masking Elijah and Xavier play throughout the story. “Conceal yourself
here”* is the rule of survival on the frontline, as well as in a more abstract sense
among peers, and, in the broader concentric zones of identification, among
white folks, wherever, including the residential school back in their childhood."
Back then, they believed that the tooth of the lynx gives speed, vision and
invisibility,® a different kind of protection for hunters and warriors than the
masks the trickster uses (Elijah, the trickster°°). Xavier is the only one who sees
past Elijah’s mask, he can fool everyone else. Xavier’s clear vision develops into
a number of sour experiences, take his sweetheart, Lisette, who turns out to be
13 Ibid., 68.
4 Ibid., 94.
15 Ibid., 183.
*° Ibid., 203-204.
* Ibid., 123.
18 Ibid., 159.
® Ibid., 295.
50 Ibid., 312.
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